Wicked Uncle

Chapter XXXV

The Chief Inspector shifted his gaze to Miss Silver, who continued to knit. After a moment he repeated his last remark.

“They don’t prove a thing, and you know it. Anyone staying in the house could have left those prints without having anything more to do with the murder than you-or me. Think of trying them on a jury-” he gave a short bark of laughter- “well, I see myself! I’ll go a step further. Say we find his prints on the extension in Porlock’s room-what does it prove? That he went in there and put through a call. Most likely everyone in the house telephoned some time today or yesterday. Masterman will say he used the nearest instrument. Say we find his prints on the billiard-room window-by all accounts he’s spent most of his time in that room since he came-he’ll say he opened the window to get a breath of air.”

Frank Abbott said, “It accumulates-doesn’t it, Chief? Even a jury might begin to think that there was rather too much Masterman.”

The gaze came back to him and became a repressive stare.

“If you’re going to count on a jury thinking, you’ll be heading for trouble. I’ve told you before, and I suppose I shall have to tell you again, that what a jury wants is facts-plain solid facts, with plain solid witnesses to swear to them. Juries don’t want to think, because they know just as well as you and me that they’re liable to think wrong. They don’t want to wake up in the night and wonder whether they were right or wrong when they voted guilty in a murder case-it’s the sort of thing that gets a man down. Juries want facts, so they can go home and say, ‘Well, he did it all right-there’s no doubt about that.’ ” He pushed back his chair. “Now what I’m going to do is this. There’s evidence enough against Oakley to justify taking him down to the station and charging him-”

“But, Chief, you said he couldn’t have done it.”

Lamb got to his feet.

“Never you mind what I said-I’m saying different now.”

Afterwards Frank Abbott was to wonder how much difference there had really been. Lamb could be deep when he liked. Frank came to the conclusion that he might, in retrospect, regard his Chief and Maudie as two minds with but a single thought.

Meanwhile the Chief Inspector was staring at Miss Silver, who responded with a faint, intelligent smile.

“It is considered a woman’s prerogative to change her mind, but I have never been able to see why a gentleman should not have the same privilege.”

She was putting away her knitting as she spoke, in the flowered chintz bag which had been a birthday gift from her niece Ethel. Ignoring Frank Abbott’s raised eyebrow, she followed the Chief Inspector from the room and across the hall.

In the drawing-room there was one of those silences. It must have been a quarter of an hour since anyone had spoken. Mr. Tote was in the armchair which he had occupied after dinner. He had a newspaper across his knees, but it was a long time since he had looked at it. Moira and Dorinda were on the sofa to the right of the fire, with Justin Leigh half sitting, half leaning, on the end next to Dorinda. On the opposite sofa Miss Masterman was in the place formerly occupied by Miss Silver, her thick duffle dressing-gown clutched about her. She held it to her in a straining clasp, as if to steady herself against a strong recurrent shudder.

In the other corner Mrs. Tote leaned back with her eyes shut.

There was no colour in her face except in the reddened eyelids. She kept thinking of Mrs. Oakley screaming out about Glen. It wouldn’t be hard to break her. If the police arrested Mr. Oakley and he was tried and hanged, she’d break all to bits- “And I’d have to stand up and swear to what I heard.” It was worse than the worst bad dream she had ever had. She kept her eyes tight shut so as not to look at Martin Oakley, who walked continually to and fro in the room like a creature in a cage.

Mr. Masterman was in the chair where his sister had sat after dinner shielding her face and thinking her thoughts. He sat easily and smoked one cigarette after another but without haste.

Moira Lane was smoking too. A little pile of cigarette stubs lay in the ash-tray balanced beside her on the padded sofa arm. Her colour was bright and high. Dorinda was very pale. She leaned into the corner, and was glad when Justin dropped his hand to her shoulder and left it there. It was warm, and it felt strong.

Police Constable Jackson, on a stiff upright chair by the door, was thinking about his sweet peas. He had sown them in the autumn in a sunk trench and they were all of four inches high, very hearty and promising. He was going to train each plant up a single string, and he aimed at taking a prize at the flower-show in July. Five on a stem, you got them that way-great strong stalks as thick as whipcord and twelve to fourteen inches long-whacking great flowers too. His imagination toyed with a gargantuan growth.

It was when he was wondering what the record number of flowers to a stem might be that the door opened and Chief Inspector Lamb came in followed by the little lady who had fetched Mrs. Tote, and by Sergeant Abbott who you could pick out anywhere for a Londoner and la-di-da at that. Pretty well see your face in his hair, you could, and a pretty penny it must run him in for hair-oil-posh stuff too… His thoughts broke off. He got to his feet automatically as the Chief Inspector came in.

Everyone had started to attention. Mrs. Tote had opened her eyes. Mr. Oakley had just reached the far end of the room and turned. He stood where he was like a stock. Everyone waited.

Lamb walked straight across the room and tapped Martin Oakley on the shoulder.

“I must ask you to accompany me to the station. I have a witness to the fact that subsequent to your telephone conversation with Mr. Carroll, in the course of which you said you were coming over to see him, someone came into the courtyard and threw gravel up at Carroll’s bedroom window. He opened it and called out, ‘Is that you, Oakley?’ The reply was, ‘It might be worth your while to keep a still tongue. Suppose you come down and talk it over.’ You can make a statement if you like, but I’m warning you that anything you say will be taken down and may be used in evidence against you.”

Martin Oakley stared at him. In the past three days he had become a haggard caricature of his former self. He stared, and said, “Are you arresting me? My God-you can’t! I didn’t do it!. It will kill my wife!”

With everyone else in the room Miss Masterman had turned and was looking at the two men, leaning with her right arm upon the back of the sofa, clutching at the neck of her dressing-gown with her other hand. At the word arrest Miss Silver saw her start. When Martin Oakley said, ‘It will kill my wife!’ she said something under her breath and stood up, jerking herself to her feet all in one piece like a figure made of wood.

Miss Silver thought that the murmured words were “Oh, no -I can’t!” If this was so, she repeated them-before Lamb had time to speak, and this time in so loud and harsh a voice as to divert everyone’s attention to herself.

“Oh, no! Oh, no! I can’t!”

She had taken a step forward, the arm which had lain along the back of the sofa outstretched as if she were feeling her way in the dark.

Geoffrey Masterman said, “She’s ill!”

He got to his feet, but before he could take a forward step there was someone in his way-Frank Abbott, with a hand on his arm and a quiet, drawled “Do you think so?”

Miss Masterman walked past them. She looked once at her brother and said,

“It’s no good.”

If he made a movement, the hand on his arm checked it. He said,

“She’s always been a bit unbalanced, you know. I’ve been afraid of this for years. You’d better let me get her up to her room quietly.”

No one took any notice. It came home to him then that he was separated from the people round him-not as yet by bolts and bars, by prison walls, or by the sentence of the law, but by the intangible barriers which have separated the murderer from his kind ever since the mark was set on Cain. Nobody listened to him or regarded his words. Only Jackson, catching Sergeant Abbott’s eye, moved up on his other side.

Miss Masterman came to a standstill midway between the fireplace and the window. In that harsh, strained voice she spoke to Lamb.

“You mustn’t arrest him! He didn’t do it!”

He seemed very solid and safe, standing there. Law and order. Thou shalt not kill. All the barriers that have been built up through slow ages to keep out the unnameable things of the jungle. If you let them in, too many people pay the price.

She heard him say, “Do you want to make a statement, Miss Masterman?” Her breath lifted in a long sigh. She said, “Yes-”